Set in the weeks leading up to the guerrilla war for independence, Sambizanga focuses on the plight of a young couple. Domingos (Domingos de Oliveira), a member of the liberation movement, is arrested, interrogated, brutally beaten and sent to the dreaded Luanda prison by Portuguese authorities. Not knowing of her husband’s fate, Maria (Elisa Andrade) and her child relentlessly search for him, from village to village and navigating a web of colonial bureaucracy.
Sarah Maldoror’s early theatre work led her to study film with Ousmane Sembène and Sambizanga, based on a book by Portuguese-Angolan author and activist José Luandino Vieira, is a passionate dramatisation of a pivotal moment in Angola’s fight for freedom.
